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I found the best form of exercise ever: ghost hunting.
No, seriously.
I'm doing a story on the Texarkana Paranormal Society for my feature writing class, and I went along with them on a ghost hunting trip. We explored the old Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Booneville, Ark.
The ground floor is still used for administration for a mental care facility elsewhere on the grounds, but the building we explored was gigantic. The top floors are completely abandoned. Five floors, a basement and an attic, with long, dark hallways, decaying ceilings, rusty doors, face masks scattered down the hallways. I don't think I've ever gone up so many stairs in one night in my LIFE. Worse, the stairways don't connect. To get to the fifth floor, you have to go up a few flights then find another flight to take you the rest of the way up. Or you might go down to the first floor in the wrong stairwell, only to find the door locked, meaning you have to venture down into the basement to get back to the first floor.
Creepiest spot? The Cage. It's the area where they kept the dangerous criminals who came down with tuberculosis, including a man they called the Cannibal. The Cannibal killed women and ate parts of them afterward. The Cage is reinforced with steel fencing on all the windows, as well as shatterproof glass.
Anyway, the place was pretty amazing, and I got the workout of my life. I'm aching all over. I'll be doing a writeup on the sanatorium on my Myspace blog as soon as I possibly can, so if you're interested in checking out my photos and some info about this crazy place, PM me and I'll let ya know my blog address when I get it posted.
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